Longmont council votes 4-2 to ban marijuana businesses

LONGMONT -- Pot shops were shot down Tuesday by the Longmont City Council, which voted 4-2 to ban recreational marijuana businesses.

"As it stands, you can grow, smoke and possess marijuana, medical or recreational, in the city of Longmont," Councilman Brian Bagley said in voting for the ban. "To me, the issue is, do we want to see stores in Longmont providing this?"

"If 58 percent of our people want marijuana to be regulated like alcohol, it's not my job to go against the will of the people," Coombs said.

Last November, about 58 percent of Longmont voters supported Amendment 64, a fact that opponents of the ban were quick to remind the council of. The amendment legalizes marijuana in Colorado -- though it remains illegal under federal law -- and allows retailers to sell the drug under regulation, similar to alcohol.

"Bans are, in my experience, lazy policymaking," said Teri Robnett of Denver, founder of the Cannabis Patient Action Network. She argued that although many were afraid of a federal crackdown, no dispensary had yet been shut down by the feds. Some have moved, after being warned that they were too close to schools.

She was one of six people at the meeting to ask for the council to postpone its vote until the Colorado Department of Revenue adopts its emergency rules, currently set for July 1.

"It would be more prudent for the city to wait until it has all the information," said Shawn Hauser of Sensible Colorado. "A ban now is jumping the gun a little bit. The city doesn't have to act right now."

Councilwoman Sarah Levison pointed out that Amendment 64 also allowed communities to opt out of retail marijuana entirely. She also said bans weren't necessarily lazy, noting the amount of work related to Longmont's ban on hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" adopted by voters last November.

Right now, she said, there was still too much uncertainty about what would happen at the state level.

"I could be in favor of not having a ban, or of overturning a ban, at a point where we had some surety in the regulatory environment," she said.

Bagley said there wasn't a lack of availability, especially since a medical dispensary was located just outside the city limits.

"First and foremost I don't want to say to my kids that smoking marijuana is OK," he said. "I'm not saying I know any more than anyone who stood at the podium. But I do have a responsibility to vote my conscience."